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French President pushing for Mediterranean Union.

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AP: Afghan Women Victims of 'Stern Social Codes;' Not Sharia

The AP's Alisa Tang wrote a horrifying account of the oppression and misogyny that women face in Afghanistan. The April 30 article bucks the post-9/11 trend of the media turning a blind eye to women's issues in Muslim countries.

What's missing are two words—Islam and Sharia.

The AP article was about a country that uses religion to oppress women but which didn't mention that religion or the system of religious laws based on that religion.

CNN Tosses Wright Softballs At 'Steely-Tough' Michelle Obama

CNN secured an interview in Indiana with "steely-tough" Michelle Obama and Caroline Kennedy on Wednesday night for Anderson Cooper 360, but the interviewer, CNN reporter Suzanne Malveaux, saw her job as deeply feeling the Obama family pain. Her idea of a rough question on the Jeremiah Wright controversy was "Did he betray you?" She also asked "How painful was that?" and "At what point did you stop empathizing with your pastor?" With Caroline Kennedy there, Malveaux avoided the obvious question of how either woman greeted Rev. Wright’s mockery on Sunday night in Detroit of how badly John F. Kennedy and Edward Kennedy spoke English.

Rev. Wright impersonated Kennedy in a nasal voice, as when a black comedian cracks wise about a stereotypical white person:

In 1961, it's been all over the Internet now, John Kennedy could stand at the inauguration in January and say, "isk not what your country can do for you, isk rather what you can do for your country." How do you spell isk? Nobody ever said to John Kennedy that's not English, "isk." Only to a black child would they say you speak bad English.

Abrams Bashes Fox News Despite Getting Trounced in the Ratings

It appears MSNBC's Dan Abrams is shamefully mimicking colleague Keith Olbermann's somewhat successful strategy to bring in viewers by belittling his competition.

Think of it as the largely unwatched liberal media member's "If you can't beat 'em, bash 'em" motif.

Despite how pathetic it is, it's certainly worked for Olbermann, whose incessant invective aimed at Bill O'Reilly -- interspersed, of course, between vitriolic rants against any politician with an "R" after his or her name, especially if it ends with "Bush" -- has nearly doubled the "Countdown" host's audience to almost a cool million.

Now, the man that used to be Olbermann's boss -- mired in his own viewership slump as he continually gets trounced in his time slot by "Hannity & Colmes" to the tune of four to one! -- has decided to adopt the former sportcaster's strategy as evidenced by the following partial transcript of Wednesday's "Verdict" (video available here):

Texas Pol Caught Drunk Driving: Name That Party!

Well, we've played "Name That Party" so often that it is getting to be old hat. How many times have we seen it where the MSM refuses to mention that a Democrat is the troubled politician in the news? We've also said many times that if only that criminal politician were a Republican, why we'd get the party mentioned ASAP. We say it and accept the claim as fact, but we don't often focus on examples to prove our case. Our detractors point to that and say "prove it!"

Call this one more example of proof.

It seems that Mike Krusee a REPUBLICAN State Representative from Williamson County, Texas got himself pulled over after a night of hittin' the hooch. Of course, we know he is a Republican because the MSM fell all over itself to let us know the fact. Curiously, Krusee is the same fellow who helped up the fines for drunk driving in the state house, the MSM also let us know.

CBS Hails Diego: Not 'Intimidated' by Immigration Law

How did the CBS Evening News explain away the much-smaller size of pro-immigration rallies around the country today? Fear and intimidation on the part of prospective participants. But fear of what? Physical threats or illegal reprisals? No. Of simple enforcement of US law. CBS singled out for praise one marcher who wouldn't be "intimidated."

CBS correspondent Sandra Hughes narrated the segment, which included these morsels.

View video here.

Michael Moore: Americans Pay More Taxes Than French, Most of Europe

As noted earlier today on Newsbusters by Matthew Balan, Michael Moore appeared on CNN's "Larry King Live" last evening. I caught a good portion of the "interview" (if King's constant agreement and sucking up qualify as an interview) and one little segment in particular got my attention. The subject was taxes:

MOORE: You were asking me a serious question. I'm sorry. Actually, you know what I would do is I would get -- I would try to lower Americans' taxes to the rate that the French pay. The French pay less taxes than we do, less.

KING: Socialist country?

TWC’s Cullen Advocates Using Weather.com, Google Earth to Promote Global Warming Alarmism

The Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen says one of the steps to fight global warming is using images to affect people's outlook.

At the "Covering a Changing Climate: The Media Challenge" forum held at Harvard University in Boston, Mass. on April 30, Cullen suggested using Weather.com and Google Earth to add visual elements to promote the cause.

"[I] split my time between The Weather Channel and this think tank in Princeton and one of the things we've been trying to do is work with Google Earth essentially. And for me, coming from The Weather Channel, the most powerful tool that exists is Weather.com and you type in your zip code and you get a forecast out five days."

ABC Didn't Ask Arianna About Removing the Right from the News

Scott Whitlock mentioned that ABC allowed Arianna Huffington to plug her book Thursday on GMA. But Charlie Gibson failed to perform any self-defense on Huffington’s frontal attack on what she calls in her book "The Pontius Pilate Press." (Is Obama the Christ in this scenario? Conservatives are the crucifiers?) Scott noted Gibson merely began: "You think they've taken on the media as well or taken over the media as well. But, basically, you feel that this country has been captured by the more extreme wing of the Republican Party?" So, ABC’s morning show hasn't interviewed Brent Bozell in this century about liberal bias, but they’re putting up no defense to the charge that ABC is an extreme-right-wing GOP subsidiary.

Huffington is making a very bold claim right now, that the media are addicted to fairness and balance, which is wrong, since liberals are right and the "discredited" Right is wrong, so conservatives should be left on the cutting-room floor. They need to engineer conservative "disappearance from the stage":

'World News' Gives One-Sided Anti-Gas Tax Holiday Report

It might not the best solution in the world, but any tax break is certainly worthy of consideration - just not according to ABC's April 30 "World News with Charles Gibson."

"The idea is to cut taxes and gas prices during in the summer vacation months, when demand is highest," ABC News correspondent David Wright said. "Great politics, but apparently terrible economics."

ABC opposed the proposal, supported by both presidential contenders Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) on the grounds it would increase demand and cause harm to the environment.

Michael Moore Justifies Rev. Wright as Example of Black Rage

After Jimmy Carter and Joy Behar, CNN’s Larry King had a prominent liberal guest on his show for the third night in a row on Wednesday, this time Michael Moore. After King played a clip from Bill O’Reilly’s interview of Hillary Clinton which concerned the issue of the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Moore pulled out the "black rage" card, as well as the stereotypical rich white liberal guilt. "[Y]ou have to ask yourself, Larry, what's it like to be black in America? And what kind of rage would you feel? And if you did feel that rage, what kind of things would you say that, at times, would be outrageous, crazy even, because you've had to live through this for so long. And I do not believe, as a white guy, that I am in any position to judge a black man who has had to live through that." [audio clip here]

Moore appeared as a guest on "Larry King Live" for the entire hour of the program. His comments on Wright came twenty minutes into the program. Besides explaining away Wright’s many polarizing and outlandish statements, he also attacked Hillary Clinton for her actions in the campaign, as well as his more usual targets of George W. Bush and John McCain.

CBS Reporter Calls Fidel Castro 'Revolutionary Hero'

They may not have food to put on their tables, but at least Cuban citizens can text message about it now.

CBS's "Early Show" gave a fairly glowing report from the May Day celebration in Havana, Cuba, May 1, on changes Cuban President Raúl Castro has made in the country. Reporter Elizabeth Palmer called the leader's brother, Fidel Castro, a "revolutionary hero."

Fidel Castro handed provisional power to Raúl Castro, his younger brother, in July 2006. Raúl Castro officially took over the presidency in February 2008 after Fidel Castro fell ill.

Anchor Russ Mitchell said the May Day celebrations in Cuba signaled a "new era" for the country, and Palmer touted reforms like "cell phones," "text-messaging," opening of "resort hotels" to Cuban citizens and "shiny new Chinese buses."

War, Inc, Yet Another Anti-Iraq War Movie

War, Inc logo parody imageThe obsession continues. Yet another Hollywood leftist is coming out with an anti-Iraq war movie. This time, it's "Sixteen Candles" star John Cusack who is begging us to take his political views seriously with his new film, "War, Inc," styled as a "dark, political satire," which seems basically to mean ham-fisted film à clef set around the fictional country of Turaqistan.

Making her debut in liberal wrist-slitting films is Hillary Duff, one of the many teen princesses manufactured by the Disney empire, who seems to be trying to earn some sort of credibility by screeching about politics.

"We're trying to raise awareness with it. It is funny and it is bizarre and a little disturbing," the former Lizzie McGuire told Reuters. "But really at the end of the day it's looking at what (our country is) doing, and it's not right."

Climate Change to Worsen L.A. Traffic, Says NPR President

Talk about finding every reason to push the war on climate change. National Public Radio President Kevin Klose found a way to get at the sensibilities of southern California commuters - by telling them global warming will make driving even worse.

Klose was a panelist at the forum "Covering a Changing Climate: The Media Challenge" held at Harvard University in Boston, Mass., on April 30. He said the effects of climate change will include migration from the south and cause a U.S. population boom of 100 million people. Klose told the audience this would be the subject of a series on NPR.

"We're going to do a unique one-week series called ‘The Next Hundred Million,' because in the next 30 years, absent of anything else, there will be another hundred million people living inside the United States of America," Klose said.

Liberal Perception Equals Reality to American Urban Radio's April Ryan

Perception is everything, facts are trivial to April Ryan, judging from two recent comments from American Urban Radio Network's White House correspondent. [audio available here]

At the April 29 Rose Garden press conference, Ryan asked President Bush the following question about the economy:

I talked to [Rep.] James Clyburn [D-S.C.] before this press conference. He said, "As a man thinketh, so are we." And Americans believe we are in a recession. What will it take for you to say those words, that we are in a recession?

Of course the following day, data from the federal government show the U.S. economy in slow economic growth, but far from the six months of negative growth needed for a recession. No matter to Ryan, who today went from applying the "as a man thinketh" logic to a 5-year old liberal media meme about the war in Iraq. Appearing shortly after 11:30 a.m. EDT on MSNBC to discuss the 2008 presidential race, Ryan parroted liberal talking points on the Iraq war:

Who's a Hoosier? Mitchell Turns Wolfson Jab Back on Hillary

It's turning out to be a red-letter day for Hoosiers. This morning, Joe Scarborough tricked Mika Brzezinski into agreeing that the famous coach of the Indiana basketball team was Bear Bryant, of all people, rather than Bobby Knight. This afternoon on MSNBC, when Howard Wolfson questioned the Hoosier bona fides of a superdelegate who today announced he was switching from Clinton to Obama, Andrea Mitchell turned the Clinton aide's gambit back on Hillary with a vengeance.

Superdelegate Joe Andrew, who in the 90s was elevated to DNC chairman with the backing of Bill Clinton, and who had earlier endorsed Hillary, today announced that he was switching his support to Obama. The timing is critical since it comes just days before the Indiana primary, and Andrew hails from the Hoosier state.

Mitchell, hosting her regular 1 PM ET politics show on MSNBC, mentioned that fact to Wolfson. When Wolfson tried to undercut Andrew's Indiana affiliation, Mitchell riposted in spades, citing the multiple states to which Hillary has claimed connection. Andrew later appeared himself, setting the record straight.

View video here.

CBS ‘Early Show’ Highlights ‘Mission Accomplished’ Anniversary

Still Shot of Russ Mitchell, May 1 On Thursday’s CBS "Early Show" co-host Russ Mitchell thought it was news-worthy to remember the five year anniversary of when President Bush announced the end of "major combat operations in Iraq" under a banner reading "Mission Accomplished": "The Bush Administration is trying to explain its use exactly five years ago of the phrase ‘Mission Accomplished.’" However, no mention was made on April 9 of the anniversary of the fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Correspondent Bill Plante reported that: "As the war progressed and casualties mounted, the phrase became a symbol of all that had gone wrong." Plante then played a clip of David Mark of the Politico, who explained: "‘Mission Accomplished’ stands for what seems like endless occupation, five years plus, after the initial invasion. It means ongoing war with no end in sight."

Earlier in the report Plante remarked: "And Press Secretary Dana Perino says the Administration has certainly paid the price." He concluded the segment by declaring: "And no one around here ever uses the phrase. Instead, they say, as the president says, that we have to ‘continue